Btw, one thing about these two is that they're not just philosophers of religion or apologists. They are also writing cutting edge research on philosophy of free will and publishing in the highest journals that are respected by secular philosophers. I thought that might be underappreciated, so I'm sharing this.

Taylor Cyr was one of my professors in undergrad!

That’s my professor! Professor Swenson taught my intro philosophy class at W&M!

@philipswenson8257

3 жыл бұрын

Hi Noah!

@noahlee3476

3 жыл бұрын

Philip Swenson Hi! This was a really interesting discussion, and I enjoyed it a lot. You should come on the podcast more often!

@TheProdigalMeowMeowMeowReturns

2 жыл бұрын

Noah is right

As an atheist and longtime follower of this channel, this is probably one of my favorite conversations! The free will issue (with issue of foreknowledge being a part of it) has long been what I've found the most detrimental argument against some version of an Abrahamic all-judging God. I'm curious if the two interlocutors would agree that more intuitions would be conserved by accepting that there is no (libertarian) free will, putting aside for a moment the arguments in favor of God that they likely wouldn't be able to conserve if they did accept this (as I presume they are stronger for them and outweigh the free will issue). In other words, would the bayesian prior for such a God's existence go down in light of the issue of free will (or seemingly lack thereof)? One could of course say yes while still be convinced of God for other reasons, but it seems like this conversation at least highlights it as one of the better points against such a God existing, and therefore needs to be rationalized as opposed to used as an argument in favor of such a God. Another question that might help. Do any of them think libertarian Free Will would be possible in a world without God?

@NomadOfOmelas

3 жыл бұрын

I also would just add, that I personally think Swenson's approach has the most hope to surmount the issue, though I don't think it has for reasons that Taylor does a great job highlighting.

Minority Report is SUCH a good movie!

What is this awesome beat at the start.

The opening reminds me of MDD

Which action necessarily, temporally, or logically would take place first? A. You deciding to raise your hand today, or B. God knowing (1,000 years ago) that you would decide to raise you hand today?

I think the main problem is that people often view God as being in time in some way. God being eternal doesn’t simply mean an infinite succession of moments in time, but rather the infinite possession of life in one eternal now. So God can see all of creation in one gaze and all of creation, which includes all times, is present to him at once. I think if you hold to this view of God, then lots of problems are either solved or become easier. I think it’s faulty to think of God as having foreknowledge, because foreknowledge seems to imply that he is in one time looking forward at another time. If God is truly timeless then this is not how it works. Rather all moments are present to him at once. And in this case I don’t see why free will isn’t compatible because humans can still act as free agents and God’s knowledge still would have no possibility of change because he can see it all in one present moment.

It's been over 3 decades, but I distinctly remember my Attic Greek professor at Queen's College (CUNY) leading the class in a discussion of the ancient Greek understanding of the concept of eternity. According to him, it didn't refer to forever or time unending. Rather, it referred to timelessness. He said the ancient belief was that God saw all time at once. Since then, I've listened to numerous mathematicians and theoretical physicists state the linear time, as humans experience it, doesn't actually exist. To me, these two ideas seem to work well together in explaining our free will and God's omniscience. In our linear experience, we view our lives as past, present and future. In God's view, the true reality of time, there is no difference. Whatever we choose to do at any given time is exactly what God sees from His eternal, divine perspective. Am I all wet? Have I been misinformed?

@felipedantas2001

3 жыл бұрын

If "whatever we choose to do at any given time is exactly what God sees from His eternal, divine perspective", then, "what God sees from His eternal, divine perspective" is exactly "whatever we 'choose' to do at any given time". Now take into consideration god's foreknowledge about one's choice and, also, one's choice. Which of these would be true before this person was born? Only the former. The exact content of one's "decisions" was ineffably known in great detail before one is born. Does it look like libertarian freedom to you?

@TomAnderson_81

3 жыл бұрын

But it could also be that if he sees it, does he or anyone have the freewill to change what he sees? If what is seen is what will be done then where is freewill?

@andrewmoon1917

3 жыл бұрын

Dr. Cyr deals with the timelessness response here. I've time-stamped it for your convenience. kzread.info/dash/bejne/kYyjuNJqpK7Yd7g.html

@johnbatts956

3 жыл бұрын

@@felipedantas2001 What exactly is God's foreknowledge? As humans, we understand foreknowledge as awareness of something "before" it happens in linear time. It's the only way that makes sense according to our finite experience and understanding of reality. We discuss foreknowledge as if God's prior knowledge of an event implies his determination or causation. If linear time does not actually exist, and our experience is illusion, "when" something happens is not material from God's perspective of timelessness. He sees all time, at once, in its fullness. What happens "before this person was born," is a concept that is only important from our finite perspective. Whatever happens in the fullness of time, whether God predetermines it or it is a result of our own choices, God would be fully aware. So I honestly don't see a contradiction between our libertarian freedom and God's eternal omniscience.

@felipedantas2001

3 жыл бұрын

@@johnbatts956 God's complete foreknowledge is the knowledge of every detail of the future (God's timelessness does not change anything. If it is the case, it is still true that there is a physical future), including every single decision that you will make in your life. It means, amongst other things, that before you were born (if god knows something timelessness, then, a fortiori, he knew this thing before you were born) every decision that you would make in the future was already ineffably foreknown. Before you were even born, for each case in which you could come to make a decision - assuming libertarian free will - it would be impossible for you to choose other than what was already known by god - assuming god's complete foreknowledge. Therefore, the conjunction of libertarian free-will and god's complete foreknowledge is impossible.

The problem of evil is only understandable to me in the context of free will. This means that to the degree we are capable of choosing for God's will, we must also must have the capability of choosing against God's will. Otherwise how free is my will? Love absolutely must give free-will to all subjects of creations, it is simply what is natural to Love. Love by nature advocates for freedom (never coercion). Also, predestination doesn't mean that every action we actually do was predetermined, rather, my freedom to do so was predetermined. We are simply predestined to be like Jesus. Before God created anything, he chose to create Humanity and decided the purpose of creating Humanity. He decided why a human being would exist before he created the habitat. We make it all personal and very individualistic, but dies it need to be? It is clear in the NT that God sees humanity as being One Man (Ephesians 2:14-15). So why personalize it? And God is Omniscient... This does mean that he has to know every choice we will make, rather, it simply means God knows every possible choice I could possibly make. This way, no matter which one I actually choose, God knew that I could choose that before I chose that. 🤔 This doesn't mean that God can't calculate the variables in our choices to determine what we will actually choose with our free will because sometimes God does this, "Before the cock crows, you will have denied me thrice". The correct interpretation of Scripture is always the one that leads us to Father's Heart. This may not be the same interpretation that leads each of us to understanding Father's Heart, but I don't think that it matters much to Father... as. Long as we are his and we've reached his Heart. 🙏🏽

I’m a little confused on Taylor’s position. Can anyone help clarify? So is he simply a deterministic compatibilist? It seems he wanted to defend a sourcehood position of free will early on, which is compatible with LFW but later on in describing his own position he moved more towards just basic compatibilism.

@philipswenson8257

3 жыл бұрын

he is a compatibilist. I think he was just saying the sourcehood view gets out of the problem he was raising

@trevoradams3702

3 жыл бұрын

Philip Swenson thanks!

1:52:31 As a member of the Bereans, I can say that this is correct. The Bereans is the maximally great FB group lol.

Does there even need to be a debate on this? Of course they aren't mutually exclusive. The fact that God knows what I will do in itself assumes that _I_ will be the one doing it. It's not that God's knowing what I will do causes me to do it necessarily, it's the fact that I will freely do X given the actualization of some possible world, and God knows this.

@redbad2652

3 жыл бұрын

But were you free or able to not do X?

I would say the person is free, for just because someone knows an actual, they would know the free choice. This free choice will then become a certainty but will not necessarily happen because it is known. Basically what is known (pass tense) is a true fact freely done.

But it could also be that if he sees it, does he or anyone have the freewill to change what he sees? If what is seen is what will be done then where is freewill?

@ob4161

3 жыл бұрын

How can He see it without eyes?

My answer to the debate question of, “Does God’s Foreknowledge preclude human freewill?” As far as we can understand God’s foreknowledge and human freewill, yes, they’re incompatible. If we aren’t meant to understand one or both of the components than we want to analyze, (or are meant to accept that not sufficiently understanding them, is understanding them) then it’s always going to be impossible to prove that the claim being analyzed is correct or incorrect. And that’s same criteria could be applied to avoid finding ANY claim to be wrong. Literally ANY claim can be treated as acceptable under that framework.

@firefalcoln

Жыл бұрын

@@dgjesdal As far as I can tell, morality makes the most sense when it is grounded in an interest in wellbeing, whether there is/was a God or anything supernatural or not. Whether a God/Gods or anything outside of nature ever did or does exist, we should feel like we get to determine our own purpose. And if we have good evidence there is a Supernatural force or agent, the qualities of that force or agent that we can reasonably understand are going to impact how we decide what counts as a meaningful purpose for us in our pursuit for our understanding of our wellbeing. So far I don’t think anyone has found good evidence for a God that should be reasonably accepted by another person or group. All of the stories of special run-ins with Gods or spirits or aliens are always ancient and indistinguishable from mythical legend stories, or they involve one or a few individuals who have nothing but their story to pass onto to other people to try to convince them that their God/Spirit/Alien encounter really happened. And we know that humans can hallucinate or misremember what they experience, or misattribute what they don’t understand in a way where they pretend to understand their confusion when they really don’t/didn’t understand their experience sufficiently enough to arrive at a reasonable conclusion of what really happened.

@dgjesdal

Жыл бұрын

@@firefalcoln I’m not sure this was meant for me. This is non-responsive to my point. My point was that Dr Taylor stating in the discussion that in naturalism if it is deterministic, and we have human responsibility, then then it is still the case if God determines “things” it still allows for humans to be liable for their actions. I’m not sure I stated that the same way the Dr did lol. 😂 Your point about grounding purpose in human flourishing lacks any “real” substantive grounds at all. I’m naturalism there is no grounding for morality. You assume in naturalism a priori human flourishing. Who says human flourishing should be the grounds at all? Why do you get to pick “us”, and human well-being? Why not cow flourishing? Maybe we are not to flourish, after all, human existence is a burp on the evolutionary time line, and in short order we are destroying our planet. Maybe human suffering should be the grounds for planet flourishing. All you are doing is picking what baseline you want then calling it “morality”. The point in theism is that God (mind) and human (mind), have explanatory power to ground human flourishing in image bearers of the creator God. It gives reason to “pick” human flourishing.

@dgjesdal

Жыл бұрын

Oops 😅 - I think my post got posted under your post. KZread is frustrating on a phone. Lol

@firefalcoln

Жыл бұрын

@@dgjesdal FYI: you don’t owe me an explanation if you didn’t mean to respond to me. I just got a notice yesterday and it looked like you responded to me and my comment a bit. So I responded to what you wrote which I was comfortable addressing. If I was arguing for only “human wellbeing” or “human flourishing” then I’d have written “human” before flourishing or wellbeing. If you’re unsure about my meaning you could always ask rather than assume I care only about humans when I don’t and never overtly indicated that I did. When you argue against a position someone doesn’t support, that’s called straw manning their position, and it’s a form of dishonest engagement. I’m also not a philosophical naturalist. So arguing against that perspective is also problematic. I am a methodological naturalist is you want to argue agains that. I don’t think the world supports this claim that it’s necessary to accept the existence of a God in order to care about the wellbeing of people and or other thinking beings. There are plenty of atheists who like other humans, marry other people, have pets, are vegans or care about environmentalism or biodiversity for the sake of the sake of valuing the existence of the other lifeforms. So I’d avoid making that claim unless you can at least find some good evidence to the contrary. Even if atheists are less likely to marry or have dogs as pets, that doesn’t prove that God solely makes anyone care about other humans or animals on earth. Also it’s quite possible to prioritize some species over others while establishing a notion of wellbeing. Someone doesn’t have to pick to care about just humans or just the planet having flourishing life at the expense of human life. The very suggestion is a false dichotomy and a failure to seriously try to establish smart decisions based on basic pros and cons that nearly all humans could accept whether they accept a God or not. I accept that there are plenty of moral conundrums without a God being a component of someone’s moral system. However I’ve yet to see how claims of a God existing or beliefs of a God existing or valuing claim A, B, C, etc solves or improves the decision-making for anyone in a moral conundrum about A, B, C etc. It just seems more arbitrary when a God is inserted into a moral hierarchy because we could likely agree on some criteria of what does or doesn’t likely lead to wellbeing whether a God exists or not. The moment one person grounds their morality in a God that the other person doesn’t accept, there isn’t going to be agreement on why both people should most deeply care about A, B, C etc. I’ve seen plenty of religious parents including my own parents instill moral values in the their kids without ever mentioned or implying that a God plays any part in their opinions of the pertinent facts. I agree with my parents on nearly all of their moral opinions because they rarely need to appeal to the existence of a God to make their case for what they accept is or isn’t good for general wellbeing of people and the rest of the planet. It’s also simple true that not every theist accepts the existence of the same God or Gods and don’t necessarily agree on the moral priorities of their accepted God or Gods if they do accept the same God or Gods. The basis of any moral opinion involving a God’s alleged interest should first consist with good evidence for the God’s existence in the first place. And certain arguments for God (which you may or may not accept) based on moral values of a God, consist of theists putting the cart ahead of the horse. If they’re interested in making a strong case for their god-centered moral perspective to non-theists or theists who accept differing Gods they first need to provide the good evidence for the God. And the enlightenment including the U.S. constitution was largely a success due in part to its movement away from that God-centered moral perspective because secular laws involve a separation between religions and government. The U.S. constitution only mentions religion to establish that the U.S. has no national religion and as a result, no God that all their citizens need to accept or value.

@dgjesdal

Жыл бұрын

@@firefalcoln Hey, thanks for being a good sport. Good conversation. The last part about the US Constitution would agree with. It does talk about the "Creator" that grounds the document though. Methodological naturalism is a distinction without a difference to me against basic “naturalism”. Naturalism is by definition methodological. Naturalism is philosophical at bottom, unless you are going to argue that Meth Naturalism is a brute fact. For my point, I was assuming methodological naturism from the get-go. That point does not change my point at all. No strawman. Human flourishing is the point at the bottom of it all. If you are talked about flourishing/wellbeing, the way you are using it conflates literally everything you want to claim. What does “flourishing” even mean against the ground floor of evolution and its product? It is at best squirrely, if not a conflation of anything you want it to be. At least Sam Harris pins it down, while you are making it so arbitrarily it has zero grounding in anything, and that makes it about nothing to me. One can’t come to the table with “wellbeing” of everything and that is your grounding of morality. Put some meat to that thing. (Said with a lighthearted spirit). I do not think you are understanding the idea of God and morality. You said… “I don’t think the world supports this claim that it’s necessary to accept the existence of a God in order to care about the wellbeing of people and or other thinking beings.” True, and this is not the argument. Of course, we “aught” to, and many do “care about the wellbeing of people”. That is the “IS”. I’m talking about the “AUGHT”. (Let me assume this is “human wellbeing" since you said people) If Naturalism only is true, then the morality of human flourishing/wellbeing is relative and not objective, it is deterministic. (If we agree with this, then we are good). It is a human construct and can’t be grounded without “foot stomping”. In Methodological Naturalism’s determinism is also true (regardless of QM), and that any choice made by a human is only from the perspective of a “passive observer”, determined by priors. IOW, priors determine the “default outcome” that we call a choice. The universe doesn’t guild morality. The argument about morality and God is not about a certain God, or certain beliefs people may hold, but that if there is a God, then it follows that what we feel, perceive and what we do, aims for a standard (even though we fall short) that is actually real, and not a relative moral goodness. If there is a True North, then even if our compass is mis-calibrated, or damaged (you see as inconsistencies), does not mean there is no True North. God, the grounding of morality, means there is a good, even an optimal good, that there remains a standard that is actually there, and is discoverable.

The way i see it is that God's knowledge of the future is totally based on the events that actually happen in the future, He can see exactly what actually happens in the future and so His knowledge of the future is perfect. '(1) God believed a 1,000 years ago that i would raise my hand at t' only if i actually will raise my hand at t. God has the power to create creatures with free-will and that is what He did.

Just talking about God knowing is not enough, God knows everything that has and will happen but He ALSO MADE EVERYTHING. The idea that someone simply "watching and knowing is not the same as influencing" is fine and dandy, but HE MADE US. If a watchmaker can make a watch with perfect precision and know the watch's future in advance perfectly, then it follows that all the inherent properties the watch has, will determine it's future, it's properties are already known and are made so intentionally with no doubt so it's future is sealed... God could make the watch different so that it would be redeemed and be a good watch, but he can also make the watch faulty and eventually stray from it's purpose. GOD not just knows, he also made it's creations the way they are ...

God is not just an omnipotent being, he is Love. I've always understood that He created us, in his image and likeness, to have free will. He respects our choices, he never forces us to choose anything.

@nathanmckenzie904

3 жыл бұрын

If he knows what you are going to do then you don't have free will

@hyperjohn6627

3 жыл бұрын

@@nathanmckenzie904 He knows because he was there when you made that choice, not because he had made the choice for us. Its hard to wrap our heads around an omnipresent timeless being.

@nathanmckenzie904

3 жыл бұрын

@@hyperjohn6627 funny because he wasn't always that way. Have you read geneais?

@hyperjohn6627

3 жыл бұрын

@@nathanmckenzie904 He knew eve was going to eat that apple. It made him really sad, but he let it happen.

Analytic philosophers seem so enamored with words and definitions that they seem to think words have the power to define a divine attribute into being, with no concern HOW metaphysically some attribute can be possible. On a model where God is in time, where the future is not decided, where there is genuine libertarian free will, it seems to me metaphysically impossible for God to have such knowledge. Just defining God as omniscient through greatest being theology doesn't resolve the contradiction. At most it just points to a different model of God or human freedom. On a more classical theist view of God's relationship to time and human action, God can reasonsbly know all human decisions because they're in some way real, present to him or in him and dependent on him. But to suggest God just has a psychic access to future events that are as yet truly nonexistent and non determined seems metaphysically impossible. Backwards causation and truth makers etc. just sounds like trying to conjure a metaphysical reality into existence through the rendering of logically possible definitions in the mind.

By the way, since it is true that words have meanings, it would be impossible for God to believe anything since belief implies a degree of uncertainty. God KNOWS what will happen 1,000 years in the future.

@26:20 ish. “My future choice is just as real as God’s past belief.” But isn’t God’s belief logically/ explanatorily prior to (outside of) ANY space time? In which case God’s belief isn’t temporally “past” at all, and the explanation for his belief isn’t the already-existent future choice… right?

Now say I presume divine simplicity. Under these assumptions free will seems unproblematic. For given divine simplicity God's knowledge of contingently actualized facts is based on Him being relation to the causes He entails namely the world existing. On this externalist view there is no problem if a person chooses X vs Y because that changing of God's knowledge isn't changing God. Moreover, remember on this view God knows via relation to His causal entailments therefore the entailed entities, namely us, can cause God to know something new without changing God.

Early church knew this answer and the answer is obvious.

@andrewmoon1917

3 жыл бұрын

What was the answer? Yes or no?

Philip looks like Jay from Red Letter Media.

@philipswenson8257

3 жыл бұрын

I hope that's true. I love Red Letter Media. I don't see the resemblance though :]

I watched all the way thru and my simplistic view was sort of mentioned. But why is it not as simple as God does not cause my choices but in His Omnisicnce He knows every choice I would/will make? (Not the Molinist (sp? think Dr. Swenson mentioned that) view either of saying God knows my choice so sets the conditions to make that happen.)

@philipswenson8257

3 жыл бұрын

We talked about that a little bit. I think your point is helpful. But to explain why premise 3 is false we still need to explain why you have control over God's past beliefs. I think appealing to God's beliefs depending on our future choices helps with that.

@TomAnderson_81

3 жыл бұрын

Qwerty If a choice is known absolutely, can that choice be changed or be different? If yes then was it really known and if not then do you really have a choice on a choice that cannot change even the slightest?

@TomAnderson_81

3 жыл бұрын

Qwerty No answer then?

@TomAnderson_81

3 жыл бұрын

Qwerty I’ll take that as no answer.

@shaunigothictv1003

Жыл бұрын

@@TomAnderson_81 Excellent analysis Tom. Here is my view. For God to be truly all knowing, he would not only have to know each possible choice a human could make in any guven situation, but he would also have to know the end choice in that situation. Which then means that thngs are all pre-determined - which also means God DOES cause peoples choices.

The Calvinist and Arminian, Provisionist etc say that God has foreknowledge, that God knows the future. But the question is HOW does God know the future, how does God know what is going to happen tomorrow for example? The Calvinist says that God knows what will happen because God has decreed it to happen. That's HOW He knows. God's foreknowledge is based on his decree, based on what he has foreordained and predetermined to happen. My question for the non-Calvinist is HOW does God know what will happen if he hasn't decreed it to happen? Cheers.

@andrewmoon1917

3 жыл бұрын

I thought that Philip Swenson answered that in the video, how God could know the future on a non-Calvinist view.

Why are the things that God infallibly knows about the future necessarily true? Also check out this quote: "An event which was foreknown must have been, for whatever the reason, certain and fixed; since an uncertain event could not possibly be foreknown. To speak of foreknowing a contingent event (that is of foreknowing an event as being certain which may or may not take place) is an absurdity. {Paraphrased from Barns Notes on the New Testament-Romans 8:29} Blessings😎

To Dr Taylor. Love your program. For me the manipulation word seems too strong, yet it could be used if it is seen as behind the scenes, then the actors are not seen directly being manipulated at one level, yet in to total picture they still are. Naturalistic causation (without God), and God causation behind naturalism needs to be taken more serious as distinctly different with moral implications. It is clear that with God there is a difference in purpose, therefore it is not indifferent, where in naturalistic causation it is blind and pitiless. A person that doesn’t seem manipulated on the surface is actually causally determined by God’s initial conditions that make up all antecedents, fully known and purposed/determined by God. God cannot be seen as deterministically rolling the dice making up the internal character of every actor. That is a weak view of God's purpose, power and knowledge. Wesley said this view of God makes him a moral monster. Literally every inkling of desire is determined by God if compatibilism is the case. This view doesn't let God off the hook IMO

Michael Heiser talks about this. I could find it and the passages he uses to back it up if anyone is interested. Heiser says God knows all possible outcomes and in scripture foretells something that doesnt happen. I could be wrong about the names but I believe it was Saul chasing after Peter and Peter went to a city to hide. Then he prayed and asked God if Saul will come to the city and if the people of the city will give him up. God tell him he will come and the people will give him up. So Peter leaves the city and Saul gets word of it and never goes to the city and therefore the people never gave him up.

The way I see it, this discussion is pointless because it's tainted by an insurmountable flaw from the get go. Premise one is incorrect: God DOES NOT have foreknowledge; GOD HAS ETERNAL KNOWLEDGE. What's the difference? Foreknowledge is not a positive quality because it implies the basic limitation of time. In order to foreknow something that will happen in the future, you must know it as not happened yet in the past. There's little that we can know about it, but one thing is sure: there's no past nor future in eternity. From God's perspective -making due allowances for the possibility that applying such vocable to God might be wholly inappropriate-nothing has already happened and nothing is waiting to happen. The one thing that will always remain elusive to us, the ever vanishing present, God possesses it fully and perfectly.

@andrewmoon1917

3 жыл бұрын

@Xavier Velasco-Suarez Dr. Cyr deals with the timelessness response here. I've time-stamped it for your convenience. Appealing to God being timeless doesn't help much, although Dr. Cyr does seem to acknowledge that it might help a little. kzread.info/dash/bejne/kYyjuNJqpK7Yd7g.html

@xaviervelascosuarez

3 жыл бұрын

@@andrewmoon1917 Thank you. Maybe I'm not understanding, or maybe Dr. Cyr doesn't understand eternity in the same way I do, which seems to be the case. The fact that he favors the term "timelessness" gives me the clue that he is still within the human time-bound paradigm, because he takes time as something we enjoy and God is deprived of. To say that eternity is a privation of time ("less" in timelessness indicates privation or absence) is only product of our inability to think outside the box or, rather, to think outside the constraints of time. There's no privation in God. The truth is that eternity is not really timelessness. On the contrary, time is "eternityless", which is to say that it's we who are deprived of the one time that really matters, which is the present time. We call it present only to distinguish it from past and future, but we are desperately unable to grasp it: the very moment you try to say it the future has become past without really transitioning through present, for time is infinitely divisible, but the present is not. Well, eternity is the capacity to grasp the present, to "freeze" it, as it were, but not as a snapshot of a moment in the film, but as a Snapshot where all the moments are contained. See, time is consequence of limitation, because it's like the background we need in order to measure motion (or change) from point A to point B, and we need motion because there are perfections that we lack. If we were in possession of all perfections there wouldn't be any reason for us to move. Why on earth would we go after point B when the totality of being is ours at point A? Anyway, I think I'm rambling. But one example may help to understand what I'm trying to say. I have infallible foreknowldge too, you know? Only of certain things, though. For example, I KNOW THAT YOU ARE READING THIS. That's more like eternal knowledge, because it's not that I know that you WILL read this (you may never get to it), but the instant you read it, right now, I know that you are reading it, IN YOUR PRESENT (present that is becoming past as we speak, by the way). How does that affect the free quality of your decision to read or not to read? Anyway, I also believe there's a misconception about what free will really is. There's something very wrong about defining free will as the capacity to act in a way different than you actually did, as if time didn't really matter. It's an error to think of free will as the absence of all constraints whatsoever that set limits to your decision. We-and our decisions-are always constrained by the coordinates of space and time. But that doesn't mean that our decisions are not free, though it does mean that our decisions are conditioned. Freedom of will does not refer to possibility, as something that requires an interaction between the subject and an object outside of it. Instead, freedom of will refers to attribution, as a quality fully contained within the individual person, a quality by which our decisions, however constrained, are our own, and nobody else's. The fact that God knows each one of the decisions we will make in our lives doesn't take an ounce from the quality of those decisions being ours, and nobody else's. It's not like God knowing what the decision is means that He "acts" through us the way we may act through a robot by programming its actions. We may say that we have foreknowledge of the things the robot will do BECAUSE we determine it in the past in a way that is really us making the decisions, not the robot. It is not so in the relation between us and God. Even supposing that God gets inside our time-which, incidentally, He did-His knowledge of how we will decide, even if it does undermine the "possibility" of us acting otherwise, it does not make the decision any less "ours" in any shape or manner, because His knowledge will not be of the result of a decision, but the knowledge of the whole FREE decision making process, without affecting in any way the ownership of our decision. I don't know if this makes sense to you, and I'm sorry to have made you the victim of my insomniac ramblings.

@jackdaw6359

3 жыл бұрын

@@xaviervelascosuarez Thanks for your thoughtful comment. I like your way of thinking.

I don't know why they didn't appeal to the mystery of God like the PoE? God knows the future and free will exists but we cannot understand how it works. The rest is stabbing in the dark and guessing. It is the same as the trinity, 3 in 1...God can just do that. You can make up almost any thing you want with an omnipotent being.

It seems to me that God puts limits on outcomes according to His will but we have choices in how little or much we want to follow that will. Satan hated those limits and chose to distance himself as much as possible from God although even in hell, God is not without control.

@rogersacco4624

Ай бұрын

If God knows the future he is bound by time and can't prevent all the suffering coming up.

Even if the idea of "backward causation" made sense (which I don't believe it does), this would NOT be a solution to the problem. If we want to reconcile free will with divine omniscience, what we need to determine is whether the propositions, (1) "God knows that Jones does X tomorrow", and (2) "It is within Jones' power tomorrow to do ~X", can both be true simultaneously. Swenson and Taylor reply that Jones doing ~X tomorrow merely entails that God would then have known yesterday that Jones does ~X. But that sort of response completely misses the point, because in their counterfactual case, what God believes and what Jones does are the same, but this isn't the question we're concerned with. The question we're concerned with is whether Jones can do something DIFFERENT than what God believes Jones will do. This is where the problem appears. For to say Yes, assigns Jones the power to instantiate a contradictory state of affairs: God infallibly knows Jones will do X when Jones in fact does ~X. Clearly it is not within anyone's power to bring about a state of affairs having an incoherent description, so it cannot be in Jones' power to do ~X. Jones therefore does not have free will if God exists and infallibly knows Jones' future actions.

@philipswenson8257

3 жыл бұрын

I am happy with the result that I have two options. I can do X or ~X. And it seems fine that God would have believed ahead of time that I would do what I did. I don't see why (in order to be free) I need to be able to make God have a false belief. The ability to make God have a different belief seems good enough for free will.

@wardandrew23412

3 жыл бұрын

@@philipswenson8257 What we want to know is whether Jones has the power to do something DIFFERENT than what God knows he will do. For example, if God infallibly knows today that Jones will do X tomorrow, does Jones have the power tomorrow to do ~X? Your response doesn't address that question.

@philipswenson8257

3 жыл бұрын

@@wardandrew23412 Suppose God believes Jones will do X. Distinguish (A) Does Jones have the power to do something different than what God ACTUALLY knows he will do (i.e. doing X)? vs (B) Does Jones have the power to do something different than what God WOULD know he would do, if he did something else. I say, as long as the answer to (A) is yes, that is good enough. Because that is enough to give Jones two different options. He can do what God ACTUALLY knows he will do, or he can do something different.

@wardandrew23412

3 жыл бұрын

@@philipswenson8257 But the answer to (A) cannot be yes, because (A) is incoherent. If God infallibly knows what Jones will do, it cannot logically be within Jones' power to do something other than what God infallibly knows he will do. The power you want to assign Jones is not merely a power he does not exercise, it is a power he cannot exercise, and a power that cannot be exercised is no power at all. Perhaps the confusion here centers on a subtle but critical difference between "true belief" and "infallibly true belief". This is a common enough mistake people make when considering the argument for theological fatalism, so perhaps the following two examples will make the distinction clear: Assume that there is book containing a complete record of your life, including every action you will ever perform. Assume also that everything the book says is true. Now given only these assumptions, is it within your power, at the time in question, to do something different than what the book says you will do? The answer is yes. To understand why, we need only realize that everything the book contains is merely contingently true. That is, if the book says you will do X tomorrow, that prediction is only true because you do in fact choose to do X tomorrow. It is however within your power to do ~X tomorrow and thereby make at least one thing the book says false, without violating our assumptions about the book. It is only because you don't, in fact, exercise this power to do ~X tomorrow that everything in the book happens to be true. Now imagine the same scenario, but this time we will make one additional assumption about the book: that it is infallible. This time when we ask whether it is within your power to do something different than the book says you will do, the answer cannot be yes. For if the book is infallible, then everything it contains isn't merely contingently true (as in the previous case); it is necessarily true. If the book says you will do X tomorrow, it cannot be within your power (even if it's a power you don't exercise) to do ~X, and by doing so make something the book predicts false. The book's infallibility blocks even the possibility of your doing something other than what it says you will do, so if such a book existed, you would not have free will. So if God's beliefs about our future actions were only contingently true, then it would be within our power to do something different than what God truly believes we will do, without violating the assumption that everything God believes is true. It's only when we assume that God's beliefs are not only true, but infallibly true, that our ability to do otherwise is logically ruled out.

@solomontruthlover5308

3 жыл бұрын

kzread.info/dash/bejne/eWqeyqlufNvIXc4.html

Thanks for posting. The most powerful understanding and explanation of why we believe what we believe. Many truths revealed in the book The Land of Meat and Honey by Dr. Shmuel Asher. Many of his books are found on Amazon. Soul Revolution, The Greater Exodus, The Asher Codex. Recently published The Essene Law with translation and commentaries. Must reads!!

Short answer: no. There is no causal relation between God knowing what we will freely do and our doing it. To quote C.S. Lewis, to watch someone doing something is not the same thing as making him do it. So many skeptics get it backwards. God’s foreknowledge does not determine our actions. Rather, our free choices inform God’s foreknowledge.

@TheProdigalMeowMeowMeowReturns

3 жыл бұрын

That’s a nice summary of the position, but critics will say that it’s still an incoherent idea. Watching someone do something (either in real time or in the past via video) isn’t analogous to knowing future free actions with equal certainty. There seems to be an asymmetry there.

How can backwards causation even be considered to be a serious proposition

@andrewmoon1917

3 жыл бұрын

I thought Philip Swenson answered that in the video.

I just watched two Christians argue about free will without citing one word from scripture, yikes...

@questionasker8791

3 жыл бұрын

Qwerty - If the outcome of your philosophical discussion appears to contradict scripture, which one would you go with?

@questionasker8791

3 жыл бұрын

Qwerty - For instance, divine simplicity vs. the trinity.

@questionasker8791

3 жыл бұрын

@Qwerty As William Lane Craig puts it: "(...) the classic doctrine of divine simplicity holds that God is an absolutely undifferentiated unity Who has no distinct attributes, stands in no real relations, Whose essence is not distinct from His existence, and Who just is the pure act of being subsisting. As such, the doctrine of divine simplicity is one that has no biblical support at all and, in my opinion, has no good philosophical arguments in its favor. Moreover, it faces very formidable objections. So in answer to your first question, I do reject the traditional doctrine that God is absolutely simple." www.reasonablefaith.org/writings/question-answer/divine-simplicity

@questionasker8791

3 жыл бұрын

Qwerty - Why do you presuppose I know nothing?

@questionasker8791

3 жыл бұрын

Qwerty - You have said nothing coherent to refute the questions I’ve asked, nor have you said anything coherent that shows my assumptions about Christian doctrine are faulty. You simply state that I’m unintelligent and leave it at that. It makes you appear as though you are really good at chest thumping, but have no substance. For example, specifically when talking about the working of prayer and the working of the Holy Spirit. You don’t understand that if there is a God that interacts with the world, that you are now in the realm of measurability. You can test these things. Are you for instance suggesting doctrine indicates God doesn’t interact with the world?

In life we have many options, we make decisions by the thousands every day God knows all the possibilities which are billions in a life time. Depending on what we chose God knows what will happen because he has seen all the different possibilities already but he does not know wat our choice will be that is why we have freewill. Thats my short view. Jesus Christ is King 👑

@adanorozco8910

3 жыл бұрын

@Frost x Dash i agree with you

If you could have two omniscient beings, and they played Rock, Paper, Scissors..what happens..

@MyMusics101

3 жыл бұрын

Supposing that they would actually decide to play, this might be a reasonable argument against the possibility of multiple omniscient beings existing. Although, if this argument really does work, then I think it limits the existence of some types of knowers even further. E.g. in the example, the problem arises from being A knowing precisely what being B will throw given what being A will throw, and vice versa. So, we could also exclude the existence of multiple perfect Rock-Paper-Scissors-predictors. Interestingly, I think this is as an argument against the possible omnipotence of a perfect predictor. For if she was omnipotent, she could presumably create another perfect predictor, which would mean two prefect predictors exist, which would seem to be a contradiction.

One problem with all of discussions about this subject is that we try to handle this by logical discussion. The oft case is that we fail to actually ask God (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) what the actual case is. We often fail to keep in mind that we live in time and God (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) is timeless. This puts a completely different perspective on the question. It is not a matter of Him not knowing anything or choosing to not knowing something or even having a belief about something. Since He is timeless, the concepts of past, present and future are not something that constrain Him in any way. We are in time and this affects our perspective about what is past, present and future. Causality is a function of time and space. From our perspective of being in time, we can view the problem as being that God (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) "seeing" or having full knowledge of every possible action that we can do. However, the timelessness aspect is what we cannot get our heads or minds around and as such, we are fully incapable of understanding this. We understand so little of the nature of the universe and this is just another area that we need to Spirit of God to gain wisdom.

@andrewmoon1917

3 жыл бұрын

@Hill Strong, Dr. Cyr deals with the timelessness response here. I've time-stamped it for your convenience. Appealing to God being timeless doesn't help, although Dr. Cyr does seem to acknowledge that it might help a little. kzread.info/dash/bejne/kYyjuNJqpK7Yd7g.html

@hillstrong715

3 жыл бұрын

@@andrewmoon1917 Thank you for your reference to Taylor's commentary on timelessness. However, the problem remains that since we are in time and we do not experience timelessness, we cannot know or even pretend to understand what this means in terms of God (Father, Son and Holy Spirit). Let me put it in another way. We are given certain statements in the Bible which are simply given. We are not given any information regarding how they are related. As humans, we have a tendency to try and fill in the blanks so that we can connect these facts or statements. In the normal course of life, that is not a problem. We are supposed to be rational. We are supposed to grow in wisdom and understanding. We are supposed to learn more and more about the universe so that we can gain a greater appreciation of the nature of our Holy Creator God (Father, Son and Holy Spirit). The problem that arises is when we forget that in doing these investigations, we make assumptions that we can understand the infinite with some sort of clarity. My background is in electrical engineering and computer science. My interests are eclectic and I am fascinated in all of the amazing complexity of the universe around me. One particular interest is looking at the unification of the strong nuclear force, electromagnetism and gravity. I have come across a couple of theories/models that suggest two interesting ideas. The first is that the strong nuclear force is a very short distance and high velocity effect of electromagnetic fields. The second is that gravity is a residual dipole effects of high frequency electromagnetic interactions between effectively neutral atoms. Both models give results that are of the right order of magnitude and right order of distances. Now, in studying these and attempting to build a combined mathematical model, I have come to the conclusion that even if an unified model could be created, it would not give us an actual understanding of the underlying reality that God (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) has created and sustains. We can and do make predictive models and theories, but they don't give understanding of the fundamentals. We see this outwork in the various views expressed by men and women who professionally work in these areas. The confusion that is exhibited in just quantum mechanics and each of the associated fields is evidence of this failure to understand/comprehend the "basics". There are many things are simply beyond us. We are just too limited in our abilities to comprehend the actual reality of the universe around us. In terms of free will and God's (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) knowledge of what we consider the future, the past and the present, we are told a number of things. The first is that God's (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) purpose and plan will come to pass. The second is that we have the freedom to choose certain paths. The third is that without Him, there are paths we cannot choose, we have NO capability to do so. Without the full picture, which we do not have, these appear to be incompatible. Note that we do not have the full picture and as such we cannot see how to join these concepts. What is expected though is that we believe God (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) and believe that He knows what He is talking about, even if it appears to be illogical or impossible. If you have children, think about how often they have asked you for what is impossible in their sight, yet you have delivered. Or think about when you tell them something and it makes no sense to them and yet they trust that you know what you are talking about. We are in that same position of being little children who are extremely limited in any abilities we have to understand even simple ideas. More complex ones like free will, time and timelessness and God's (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) knowledge are simply beyond us. We can certainly try to gain wisdom and understanding, but we had better keep in mind that it is limited and is more than likely to be flawed because we cannot comprehend the larger perspective. We need to be prepared to acknowledge our limits. For example, a theologian friend of mine takes the various debates between Calvinists and Arminians are less than useful and he characterises the solution in the following way: "God is both Calvinist and Arminian", which is to say that we do not have the appropriate clarity to understand how God (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) looks on the debate. Don't forget that even though God (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) is by nature outside of time and space, He is also inside time and space as He interacts with us and sustains time and space. Think about that and you should quickly realise that we cannot get a grip on that. He is God and we are not. Let us give Him all the Glory and all the Honour and Trust Him as we grow in the the Knowledge and Spirit that He gives us and as He makes us a new creation in Jesus Christ.

suggestion: have Steven Bancarz on the show

@javariusjavarlamariuslamar3759

3 жыл бұрын

No that guys an absolute joke😂

Seems strange to me that Philip has problems with Molinism regarding free will, but holds to B theory.

@philipswenson8257

3 жыл бұрын

can you say more about why that is strange?

@EssenceofPureFlavor

3 жыл бұрын

@@philipswenson8257 Because under b theory, the future is just as real as the present. It already exists. How can you be said to have free will if the future is already set? This is different from God's knowledge of the future. Saying the future is set and that we have the ability to affect it in any way are completely contradictory.

@philipswenson8257

3 жыл бұрын

@@EssenceofPureFlavor I see, good question. On B theory my future free choice already exists. And it explains why (some parts of) the future is the way it is. Since the future's being set is explained by my choice, it doesn't undermine my freedom. (At least on my preferred dependence approach.)

@EssenceofPureFlavor

3 жыл бұрын

@@philipswenson8257 Just realized who I was talking to. I hope I'm not coming across rude. I'm sure you've considered this. I may be missing something myself, or have an incorrect understanding of the theory. As it is though, I have a tough time reconciling these two ideas for myself.

@philipswenson8257

3 жыл бұрын

@@EssenceofPureFlavor Not rude at all. I have met others who had your reaction. It helps me to focus on the fact that the future is set the way it is only because of my future free choice.

Premise 3 Is false.

@philipswenson8257

3 жыл бұрын

yes!

I'll save you time. Gods foreknowledge totally precludes free will.

@javariusjavarlamariuslamar3759

3 жыл бұрын

Yup

@firefalcoln

3 жыл бұрын

If God’s foreknowledge ever existed at all, then yes.

The argument that we don't have free will is nonsense. People who think we don't have free will are obviously ignorant, they can't have watched Back to the Future.

@questionasker8791

3 жыл бұрын

In Back to the Future, when they go to the past, do they change the environment of the past, or does it stay the same?

@jt2097

3 жыл бұрын

@@questionasker8791 if they went back and set fire to the Amazon it would change the environment.

@questionasker8791

3 жыл бұрын

JT - I mean environment in the broad sense of the word. The premise of Back to the Future is: if the environment changes, the responses to the environment changes. This is consistent with determinism.

@jt2097

3 жыл бұрын

@@questionasker8791 No I don't think that is consistent with determinism. If you choose to go back in time and prevent your parents from choosing to get together it means you won't be born so you won't be able to choose to go back in time to stop them getting together. That has nothing to do with not having free will.

@questionasker8791

3 жыл бұрын

JT - Do you not face the exact same paradox with free will?

How do you people even take yourselves seriously arguing this stuff? You can raise your hand, or not. Your choice. God is a figment of your imagination.

@VaggelisR

3 жыл бұрын

Materialism and predeterminism go together. Stephen Hawking has made a speech about this. So if you are an atheist you just cannot believe in free will.

@riverofthewood

3 жыл бұрын

@@VaggelisR What do you mean by "free will"? Give me a concrete, real-world example of something that is free will, and something that is not.

(22:00) but then you have a God who learns, seems problematic with the aseity.

@cosmicnomad8575

Ай бұрын

That’s my thought. In fact, I think the word “Foreknowledge” itself is faulty because it implies God is in one moment of time looking forward at another point of time. This seems to put God inside time, which is not true.

@Repentee

Ай бұрын

@@cosmicnomad8575 definitely a hard topic - I can't wrap my mind around it. This, at least for me, is one of the reasons I think God is worthy of worship. His being/essence is in one sense imminent in that we can know something of Him but He is also transcendent, that is, there are ways that we can't grasp and or know all there is know about Him. It seems one of the many glories of Eternal Life is that our pursuit will be this summiting the peak of God's 'peakless' glory. Such is God in relation to time, I think - In one sense God interacts with us in time but in another he is as you say, completely outside of it, which makes eternity in the fullest sense a concept that I can not grasp as my thinking, language, etc. is so time oriented. Like what is timelessness? What would it be like to live in such a reality?

Just sounds like rebellion that leeds to over thinking how to justify libertarian free will.

@tophatt5706

3 жыл бұрын

@Dominus Illuminatio Mea They are just ideas 💡, the truth is already spelled out in scripture. If it was an atheist vs Christian, I'd understand the philosophical imagination Olympics. But....it's Christian vs Christian, so we have God's word to hash this out.

Backward causal dependence makes no sense unless you hold a static, "B-theory" of time. The problem is that such a view is logically incoherent. It is not possible to even explain the view without misusing tense, which renders the sentences meaningless. Besides, if we can be certain about anything, the existence of change should be one of them. You can't write it off as an illusion, since the illusion itself changes. The B-theorist will often compare it to the frames on a movie reel, but those never change or elapse. They are all equally real all the time. So, B-theory has a 4 (or more) dimensional static world, and questions like "what if this 4-dimensional object moved or ceased to exist?" have to be just brutely forbidden. It's a hopelessly conceptually confused view. And, without it, there is no hope of saying that my future action somehow affects past states of affairs.

@Mentat1231

3 жыл бұрын

I'll add that A-theory does *not* have any issue with explanation or causation "across time". That's just a B-theorist trying to cut off most of their block world and leave behind a slice (the present). The normal conception of the world is that it evolves and changes dynamically, and its current state is explained by how it used to be. There is no issue here.

@ob4161

3 жыл бұрын

@@Mentat1231 What about the grounding/truth-maker issue, though? At least the B-Theorist can ground objective truths about the past. On presentism, however, nothing can make them true and/or distinguish them from false statements about the past. If the past is nothing, then truths about the past are grounded in nothing.

@Mentat1231

3 жыл бұрын

@@ob4161 I've seen various approaches to this. Arthur Prior wrote about it, though I am still working through understanding him.... Lol. Here are a couple of quick thoughts on the matter: 1) If the only coherent approach to time talk has a problem with truth makers, then all that would follow is that truth maker theory is false. Or that only some truths need truth makers. After all, this would hardly be the only problem Truth Maker has. For example, it's already hard to see how negative existential truths (e.g. "there are no unicorns") can have a truth maker. 2) Here's a thought from Prior: It may be that a statement like "Queen Anne has been dead for years" is not really about Queen Anne (who doesn't exist anymore). It's akin to a general fact like "someone stole my pencil". Now, of course, if "someone stole my pencil" is generally true, then there is also a more specific truth about who did it. But I can believe the former, more general and more vague truth without having any belief about the specifics of who did it. Likewise, the statement "Queen Anne died years ago" can be true and believed to be true, even if what it's actually "about" is something general, like "the world", rather than about a being that does not exist.

@ob4161

3 жыл бұрын

@@Mentat1231 Don't you think that the absence of anything that makes it the case that X happened rather than Y entails that the past is indeterminate? If everything that exists is compatible with both Y or X having happened (which I don't see is impossible on A-Theory) then it seems that there's no fact of the matter about which one happened. It also seems problematic for moral responsibility. If nothing makes it the case that (for instance) Jones lied rather than told the truth, then how could he be held responsible for that? Everything that exists is compatible with his having lied or told the truth and thus indeterminate between them.

@Mentat1231

3 жыл бұрын

@@ob4161 So, it seems to me that a question like "what makes it the case that X happened rather than Y?" is a type of conceptual muddle that comes from looking at temporal becoming through a B-Theoretical lens. Something *made* it the case that X happened rather than Y, but why should something continue to "make it the case"? What would that even mean? Secondly, the past is not "indeterminate"... it doesn't exist at all. But, your main point seems to be that _facts_ about the past, have indeterminate truth values because everything that exists is compatible with either past state of affairs. I would first like to strongly object to that in the many (perhaps universal) cases in which there are causal *traces* of what happened in the past. After all, the current set of truths is not compatible with the Earth never having formed or with its having been rendered sterile in the 60s by nuclear war. The world is not an isolated and frozen slice; it is dynamically morphing, and its current state is the causal result of previous states. What you really have is (at best) a mere linguistic puzzle. And such a puzzle certainly doesn't warrant a deep and far-reaching metaphysical commitment. *Especially* when the view it would commit us to is actually incoherent. I would just hold this puzzle up against other linguistic puzzles, like "Ponce de Leon was searching for the Fountain of Youth" which is compatible with there either being such a thing as the Fountain of Youth or not. It is still true that he was searching for it. And, if you find that to be a great metaphysical puzzle, then that's fine. But, most people wouldn't. Likewise, most people would think that what grounds the truth of "Caesar was murdered" is that he actually was murdered. They would also think it quite obvious that Caesar doesn't exist. There is no puzzle unless we create one by affirming some incompatible criteria for what counts as a truth maker or grounding. But such puzzles are manifold, utterly apart from the issue of temporal becoming. Truths of mere possibility, of negative existential claims (there are no fairies), about fictional entities (Superman's alter-ego is Clark Kent, not Bruce Wayne), etc. etc., can all create interesting linguistic puzzles. But they don't warrant deep ontological or metaphysical commitments. Edit: I just wanted to add that some of these other puzzles also have moral consequences. For example, truths of mere possibility are absolutely crucial to moral responsibility.

If god knows everything, then we have ZERO consequential free will. What is the point of human free will, if god's free will is the will that is dictating how things are now, and how they will be in the future? The lord's prayer says it "let your will be done on here as it is in heaven." If humans a free will that can change god's plans, then god cannot know everything. If god knows everything, then human free will is inconsequential, and thus, negligible. This is just more proof that humans made this magical god with omni properties to create the ultimate comic book superhero. The god of Abraham doesn't map to reality.